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I work for US Customs and there are 20,000 of us assigned to international airport, seaport, and land border POEs all over the country. Prior to the shelter in place/lockdown, a CBP officer at a busy POE easily processes 200+ returning travelers each day in 10 hour shift. That is A LOT of potential exposure to the virus. Yet, there are only 160 infected cases with CBP and zero death that i know of. Add to that the virus started in China in late last year when it was busy busy travel seasons (thanksgiving, christmas, and chinese new year) for CBP to process travelers.
Yet, we only have 160 people infected out of 20,000?
Hi Bob, excellent post, and reasonably stated, a rarity around here.
First, let me just say that no one has all the answers - no one. As others have stated, it's "new" and the research is ongoing. There are no "for sures" - except: The older you are, the worse your odds. We also know: It's contagious. Not everyone has symptoms. And you can die. As far as "facts" go - that's about it.
Your numbers are probably low. Best guess right now - something like 10 to 50 million people are infected. Maybe more. Why so high? Why so few dead? A couple of reasons - at 60K dead, and a .1% death rate - that's 60 million infected. I (personally) think it's higher than 0.1%, because New York has too many dead for their population size, but that's neither here nor there. Numbers say it can be 60 million, but probably less.
Now - to spread it - you need someone else who is not infected. For most "essential" workers - you have two possibilities: The place practices good PPE and monitoring measures, is self-conscious, washes and disinfects regularly, keeps people apart, and so on. Those people may not deal with the public (like me) and so I see the same group every single day (when I'm not at home - lots of "essential" people are at home). Keep in mind that - if you're going to get over it - you will do so in about 14 days (average). It means lots of these "better kept" folks aren't getting sick, and those that were asymptomatic carriers are over it, and so now the situation is more tolerant of lazy mask wearers.
Then ya got the other half: Home depot. Lowes. Etc. This - to be sure - is a small part of the retail world - and malls, for instance, are closed. So - your typical home depot - can't rely on those kids to be following the rules. Sorry. They're not. I know several. No rules. Rebels. Assume they are infected. Now, you're a customer:
You might get infected if: You get near a sick person AND they get their germs on you. MOST Of these retail folks are wearing masks to limit their spread. SOME of the customers are as well. Transfer by touch is less common - by breath/sneeze/cough/droplets - more common. As a result - I've been to home depot several times. I do not know for sure - but I doubt I'm infected. Why? Because I never got within 20 feet of an employee. Self-checkout. Hand sanitizer. Easy.
Now - back to your question: "Why don't we see the number of infections predicted?"
We do. It's probably 30 to 50 million, or will be. At 0.2 or 0.3% - that's 100K to 200K dead. And that's where we're headed. Roughly. It all adds up fine - no contradictions.
Now - what if ALL retail were open? What if there were Disney? Sports? NBA? NHL? School? What if no one washed and no one wore a mask? What if no one "assumed" they were ill - and then visited gramma? Do you think that the number of infected would go UP? Or Down? Self-answering...and explains the INITIAL guess at # of dead.
For all the folks that "don't believe anything xxx tells me" - the gov't, the internet - whatever - that's fine - but your lone alternative is to read and understand the research reports - the formulas - the math - the science - REALLY understand it. Other than that: Everything you've been told is from the gov't. The dr's. are using gov't. information - because that's the only place they can get it. The statisticians, the data, the analysis - all of it - every single part if it - is provided from the gov't. at some level - so please - by all means - don't believe it. But don't make up your own stuff either. Just sit quietly by and do your best.
PS - if anyone's gonna flame me for going to Home Depot, please google SUMP PUMP and FLOOD.
We were told for weeks that cats and dogs can't catch it.
I am sorry, I was paying little attention to what "we were told."
Say back in February I had a conversation with someone working for the local county in the Health department.
And she told me that "yes, they are alerting us to what's coming," giving the instructions and all, but by the sound of it ( from what she was saying) it was perceived as just another harsh flu season, with standard approach and procedures.
But while I was listening to that doctor in the video I posted earlier, and observing what was taking place in China, it was clear to me that what was taking place was nothing "standard."
Far away from it.
What threw me off, ( in terms of perceiving it as upcoming danger here in the US,) was the lack of immediate outbreak in the neighboring Russia, with a long-stretched, and very porous border.
So I thought that this pandemic was specific and limited to Asian regions only, sort of like some outbreaks take place in Africa.
So it was definitely not your "regular flu," and since it was something different, it didn't make much sense to me to follow what the officials were saying, regarding pets including.
I think they just ASSUMED initially that pets were not affected, since nothing pronounced or dangerous was going on on that front right away.
So they are only LEARNING new things about this virus as they go.
I don't believe most of what I hear on the TV. Statistically the data doesn't add up, throwing numbers out from computer models. They might as well use a crystal ball.
Hi Bob, excellent post, and reasonably stated, a rarity around here.
First, let me just say that no one has all the answers - no one. As others have stated, it's "new" and the research is ongoing. There are no "for sures" - except: The older you are, the worse your odds. We also know: It's contagious. Not everyone has symptoms. And you can die. As far as "facts" go - that's about it.
Your numbers are probably low. Best guess right now - something like 10 to 50 million people are infected. Maybe more. Why so high? Why so few dead? A couple of reasons - at 60K dead, and a .1% death rate - that's 60 million infected. I (personally) think it's higher than 0.1%, because New York has too many dead for their population size, but that's neither here nor there. Numbers say it can be 60 million, but probably less.
Now - to spread it - you need someone else who is not infected. For most "essential" workers - you have two possibilities: The place practices good PPE and monitoring measures, is self-conscious, washes and disinfects regularly, keeps people apart, and so on. Those people may not deal with the public (like me) and so I see the same group every single day (when I'm not at home - lots of "essential" people are at home). Keep in mind that - if you're going to get over it - you will do so in about 14 days (average). It means lots of these "better kept" folks aren't getting sick, and those that were asymptomatic carriers are over it, and so now the situation is more tolerant of lazy mask wearers.
Then ya got the other half: Home depot. Lowes. Etc. This - to be sure - is a small part of the retail world - and malls, for instance, are closed. So - your typical home depot - can't rely on those kids to be following the rules. Sorry. They're not. I know several. No rules. Rebels. Assume they are infected. Now, you're a customer:
You might get infected if: You get near a sick person AND they get their germs on you. MOST Of these retail folks are wearing masks to limit their spread. SOME of the customers are as well. Transfer by touch is less common - by breath/sneeze/cough/droplets - more common. As a result - I've been to home depot several times. I do not know for sure - but I doubt I'm infected. Why? Because I never got within 20 feet of an employee. Self-checkout. Hand sanitizer. Easy.
Now - back to your question: "Why don't we see the number of infections predicted?"
We do. It's probably 30 to 50 million, or will be. At 0.2 or 0.3% - that's 100K to 200K dead. And that's where we're headed. Roughly. It all adds up fine - no contradictions.
Now - what if ALL retail were open? What if there were Disney? Sports? NBA? NHL? School? What if no one washed and no one wore a mask? What if no one "assumed" they were ill - and then visited gramma? Do you think that the number of infected would go UP? Or Down? Self-answering...and explains the INITIAL guess at # of dead.
For all the folks that "don't believe anything xxx tells me" - the gov't, the internet - whatever - that's fine - but your lone alternative is to read and understand the research reports - the formulas - the math - the science - REALLY understand it. Other than that: Everything you've been told is from the gov't. The dr's. are using gov't. information - because that's the only place they can get it. The statisticians, the data, the analysis - all of it - every single part if it - is provided from the gov't. at some level - so please - by all means - don't believe it. But don't make up your own stuff either. Just sit quietly by and do your best.
PS - if anyone's gonna flame me for going to Home Depot, please google SUMP PUMP and FLOOD.
I had to go to Home Depot last week to pick up some stuff for work.
About 150 cars in the parking lot and at least that many people walking around inside.
No hand sanitizer at the doors or employees wiping down carts.
There was only one checkout with an actual clerk.....
The rest were self checkouts with scanner guns that you had to pick up and scan your items with yourself......the same guns everyone else in front of you was using.
Then you paid through a touch screen debit card reader. And had to punch in your pin on the same pad everyone else was.
Again..... nobody wiping things down.
As far as manufacturing goes........
Im a tech rep for a chemical company and have to visit our manufacturing customers regularly.
Many have no "plan" for dealing with the virus and only about 10% of the employees are wearing masks or gloves and many aren't following social distancing rules either. (To be fair, it would make some of their jobs impossible to preform).
And none of my customers have any reported cases.
So unfortunately, what you describe in theory isn't what I'm seeing out there in the real world.
All people are asking for is a little bit of logical consistency in what they're being told.
Deaths should be in the hundreds of thousands if not million. But the average age is under 29 so youth definitely plays a huge part fighting this off.
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They all agree on the terminology and it magically becomes SCIENCE!
